2386. The Drawings Of Divine Love

No. 2386-40:529. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, August
26, 1888, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, November 11, 1894.

No man can come to me, unless the Father who has sent me draws him
and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the
prophets, “And they shall be all taught by God.” Every man therefore
who has heard, and has learned from the Father, comes to
me.{Joh 6:44,45}

1.
There is something here which troubles many seeking souls; they hear
the gospel preached in this manner, “Look and live,” or, “Believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” This comforts them,
and they say to themselves, “This is a way in which we can run, we
delight to be told about salvation by faith in Christ.” Eventually,
they hear a discourse on our Saviour’s words, “You must be born
again,” or they listen to descriptions of the inward experience of
the child of God. They are taught that there must be a brokenness of
heart before there can be a true binding up, there must be a
stripping before there can be a clothing, there must be death before
there can be resurrection; and then they say to themselves, “This, we
fear, is true; but how different it is from the message we heard the
other day! Are there two things equally true, — salvation by simple
faith in Christ, and yet the necessity of a new heart and a right
spirit?” They are equally true, and they ought to be preached with
equal clarity, and equal earnestness; but I would say to every
seeker, “You will find it very injurious to get worrying yourself
with such difficulties as these. As a rule, you had better leave
those questions for another day.” Suppose that you were puzzled
concerning specific gravity, the weight of a body in water, — if you
were a drowning man, I should recommend you to waive the
consideration of such a subject until you were safely on shore. It is
hardly the time, I think, to enter into difficult questions while you
are in grave peril; and, in the same way, you may leave many
theological questions until, by faith in Christ, you are saved. Then,
going into his school, you may ask him to teach you these other more
advanced lessons.

2.
Now, for your help, I desire to say that these two doctrines of
salvation by faith and the inward drawing of the Spirit of God are
equally true; and unless they are proclaimed in due proportion,
mischief may come from the preaching of either the one or the other.
I do think that, when the preacher says only, “Believe, believe,
believe, believe, believe, believe,” mischief may come from that
imperfect declaration; for it is a one-sided form of truth, and other
important truths may be forgotten, and men may get into a superficial
habit of imagining that they believe when they hardly know what it is
that they believe, and their faith is not the living faith of God’s
elect, which works by love, purifies the soul, and sanctifies the
life. On the other hand, I am quite sure that you may preach the need
of inward experience, and preach it very thoroughly and continually;
but if this other matter of faith is left out, you may preach some of
your hearers into despair, many of them into indifference, and others
of them into a kind of self-righteousness of feelings. I have met
people who were certainly trusting in their feelings, and who
went so far as to condemn others because they had not endured the
same amount of misery, and passed through the same conviction of sin,
or indulged in the same agony of despair. If the two truths are
preached, we shall not stop to reconcile them; there is no need to do
so, especially if they reconcile themselves to you while we preach.
If the two doctrines are preached, they will act as a balance to each
other; and while men hear our Saviour say, “He who believes in me
has everlasting life,” they will not misunderstand what he says if
they also hear as the deep bass note of that musical scale the
equally divine utterance, “You must be born again.”

3.
The text gives us good help on this subject. I do not believe that
there are any practical difficulties in the matter at all; I say,
practical difficulties, for there are philosophical difficulties.
Is there any subject about which there are not philosophical
difficulties? Can you not, if you think of anything, even if it is
the most commonplace fact in natural history, very soon surround it
with a cloud of obscurity which no one can remove? Any fool can put a
stool where a wise man will trip over it; and you can soon raise a
difficulty if you want to. Here is one. There is a young bull in
the meadow, and there is also a sheep in the same pasture. They will
both eat grass, and on the young bull that grass will turn to hair,
and on the sheep it will turn to wool. How does that happen? Can you
tell me? No; and I do not want to know. It may be a very interesting
point for discussion; but practically there is no difficulty about
it. Those who tan the leather, or those who dye the wool are not
hindered in the least degree in their handicraft by the philosophical
difficulty I have mentioned. So, there are philosophical
difficulties about this matter of simple faith and salvation by it,
and of the Spirit’s work and the necessity for it; but, practically,
there is no difficulty at all, for the man who believes in Christ
Jesus is born again, and every man who is born again believes in the
Lord Jesus Christ. The two things come together, live together, and
are perfected together.

4.
However, for the help of some sincere seekers after Christ, who may
be in perplexity, I will speak about this matter that troubles them.
Let me read the text again: “No man can come to me, unless the Father
who has sent me draws him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
‘It is written in the prophets.’ And they shall be all taught by God.
Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned from the Father,
comes to me.”

5.I. Our first observation on this text is, that THE ALL-IMPORTANT
MATTER OF FAITH IS A VERY SIMPLE BUSINESS. It is mentioned here
twice, and the only definition of it that is given is, coming to
Christ:“ No man can come to me”; and again, in the forty-fifth
verse, “Comes to me.”

6.
Faith in Christ is simply and truly described as coming to him. It is
not an acrobatic feat; it is simply a coming to Christ. It is not an
exercise of profound mental faculties; it is coming to Christ. A
child comes to his mother, a blind man comes to his home, even an
animal comes to his master. Coming is a very simple action indeed; it
seems to have only two things about it, one is, to come away from
something, and the other is, to come to something.

7.
In coming to Christ Jesus as our Saviour, we first come away from
all other trusts. We leave all other confidences right behind us,
and come away from them altogether. My own works? I must come away
from all trust in them to Christ. My own feelings? I must come away
from all reliance on them to Christ. Ceremonies, forms, rites,
indeed, even such as God has given, I must come away from all
confidence in them, and I must come to Jesus, quitting and leaving
them all. You cannot come to Jesus and yet hold on to your old
trusts; you cannot come to Jesus and still cling to your old sins.
You must come away from righteous self as well as from sinful self.
To go to a place, I must go from a place. If you would come
to Christ, you must bid “good-bye” to your old sins, and say
“farewell” to your old confidences. Are you ready to sue for a
divorce between your soul and sin, between your soul and
self-confidence? That is the first essential thing in coming to
Christ, leaving all other trusts.

8.
Then the other part of coming is, drawing near to Christ, to obtain
everything we need. When we truly come to Christ, we draw near to
him. We do not any longer neglect him, we do not look away from him;
on the contrary, we begin to think much of him, our hopes centre in
him, and having thought of him, and so having come mentally to him,
we trust in him. We come to him for what he is. Is he a Saviour? We
come to him so that he may save us. Does he wash away sin? We come to
him so that he may wash away our sin. Does he heal spiritual
diseases? We come to him so that he may heal us of our diseases. You
know what is meant by coming to such and such a physician; you must
in that same sense come to Jesus Christ, the Divine Physician for
sin-sick souls.

9.
This expression, coming to Christ, is so simple that I do not know
how to make it any plainer. I am afraid that, if I were to try to
explain it, I might be like Thomas Scott when he wrote his notes to
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Going around his parish, he found a
woman who had The Pilgrim’s Progress with his notes. “My good
woman,” he asked, “Do you understand The Pilgrim’s Progress?”
“Yes, Mr. Scott, I understand The Pilgrim’s Progress very well,
and I hope that, one day, I may be able to understand your
explanation of it.” I will not attempt to explain any further what
coming to Christ is, lest I should not succeed any better than Mr.
Scott did. It ought to be clear to everyone that coming from
something, and coming to something, or someone, constitute the act of
coming. Quit, then, both sin and self by determined resolve, and come
to Jesus, rest in him, take him to be everything to you, and then
believe that you have everlasting life, according to his declaration,
“He who believes in me has everlasting life.”

10.
Yet our Saviour, in close connection with this text, gives us another
illustration of what faith is. Faith is coming to Christ; it is also
eating or receiving Christ. A man has a piece of bread in his
hand; he does not know where the wheat grew, nor in what mill it was
ground, nor in what oven the bread was baked, but he knows that it is
bread, and that he is hungry. Nature, especially living nature,
abhors a vacuum; so the man determines to fill the vacuum in himself
with that piece of bread. What does he do but eat it? You do not have
to teach children how to eat. I said to a little boy, this afternoon,
“Why do not you put your bread and butter in your ear?” Of course, he
knew better than to act like that, so all he did was to laugh at me;
and you never yet met a child who put the bread and butter in his
ear; he puts it in his mouth, and eats it. So, there really is, if
you would only use it, enough sense within you to understand what
faith in Christ is. If you were not so ready to confound and
confuse yourself, my dear friend, you might know what faith is. You
tell me that it puzzles you; I think that it is you who puzzle
yourself, not faith that puzzles you. When you get bread, you put
it into your mouth, you eat it, and let it go down into yourself. You
may not know much about the processes that are going on within you,
and you do not need to know. If you do not understand anything about
them, the bread will feed you just as well. Now, in that way take the
Lord Jesus Christ into you spiritually, and feed on him. Say from
your heart, “Lord, I live on you; I believe you to be God, I believe
that you took our nature, I trust you as the Incarnate God. I believe
that you suffered in the room and place and stead of guilty men; I
believe that you have put away the sin of all those who trust you,
and put it away for ever so that they can never be condemned. I trust
you to be my Saviour, altogether and entirely my Saviour.” If you
really do that, you are saved.

11.
“How do I know it?” one says. Because Christ says it; is that not
enough? “He who believes in me has everlasting life.” “But I have not
felt any strange sensations; I have had no wonderful dreams.” What!
are you asking for such signs as those? Is not Christ’s word, “He who
believes in me has everlasting life,” enough for you? Lord, I believe
in you; therefore, I have everlasting life; your word is enough for
me.

12.
That is my first point, faith is a very simple matter.

13.II. But, secondly, TO THIS FAITH MEN ARE GREATLY DISINCLINED. He
who knew most about men says of them, “No man can come to me, unless
the Father who has sent me draws him.”

14.
Men are grievously disinclined to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their unwillingness is so great that it amounts to an inability of
this kind, that, just as there are none so deaf as those who will not
hear, and none so blind as those who will not see, so there are none
so unable as those who are unwilling, and the Saviour so puts it,
“No man can come to me, unless the Father who has sent me draws him.”

15.
But why are men so unwilling to believe in the Lord Jesus? In
Christ’s lifetime on earth, their unwillingness arose partly
because he was of such lowly origin. They said, “We know Joseph,
and Mary, and the brothers of Jesus; how can we believe in him as the
Messiah?” He was so poor, so obscure, he came from a family that was
not notable in Israel as far as they knew. Besides, he came out of
Nazareth, and they asked “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
He was a Galilean, and they could not look up to one who came from
that despised region.

16.
In addition to that, all his teaching was opposed to their proud
notions. If he had come as an earthly king, to overthrow the Roman
power, they might have believed in him; but, as he was, they regarded
him as a root out of a dry ground. They could see nothing illustrious
about the Man of sorrows, so they would not believe in him; and
numbers of people, to this day, do not receive Christ because faith
in him is not fashionable. True godliness is not held in high
repute in the upper circles of society. Oh simpletons, to lose your
souls for the sake of a little worldly grandeur! May God save us all
from such insanity as that!

17.
The more common reason why men are not saved by faith in Christ is,
because they do not see any need of a Saviour. I know you very
well, my dear Mr. Good-Enough, and my dear friend, Mr. Too-Good! You
do not believe that you need any saving; you think that you have as
much as you ought to have of everything that is good, and even some
to give away. Oh, yes! you hope to enter heaven with all sails up.
What will you do when you get there? The redeemed ones are all
singing that they have washed their robes, and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb; but you will have to go up in a corner by
yourself, and hold your tongue, because you did not have anything
that needed to be washed, and you were yourself perfectly clean. You
would not be happy in heaven, for the very glory of that blissful
place is the Lamb of God, and his precious blood is the theme of
continual thanksgiving. I pray God to bring you out of your miserable
delusion, for it is no better than that. You are not the good man
that you think you are; but you are stained with sin from head to
foot, and unless you are washed in the divinely-provided bath even in
the atoning blood of Jesus, you will perish in your sin.

18.
But many do not come to Christ, and trust him, because they will
not receive the doctrine of substitution. Christ’s dying in the
sinners’ place, the Just for the unjust, to bring them to God, they
will not have it, they kick at it. I assure you that you will never
have rest and peace until you do accept that blessed soul-saving
doctrine; for other foundation can no man lay than what is laid, even
Jesus Christ the righteous, and there is no Jesus Christ to trust in
except the glorious Substitute who bore our sins in his own body on
the tree. Oh, that men would not be so foolish as to reject God’s
plan of salvation by the vicarious atonement once offered on Calvary!

19.
Many also refuse the Saviour because they are occupied with other
things. They cannot come to Christ because their farm, their
merchandise, their newly-married wife, or something or other, keeps
them back. Oh, how long some of you have been waiting, some of you
who have attended the Tabernacle, too, all the time! If anyone had
said, twenty years ago, that you would be sitting in your pew an
unconverted man tonight, you would not have believed it. You will
hardly be sitting in that pew, an unconverted man, in twenty more
years’ time; you will either be saved, or you will have gone the way
of all flesh, I fear. Oh, that the day would come when there shall be
no more hesitation, no more postponement, but when you would from
your heart say, “I must have Christ. I will trust him!” Say even now
what we have often sung, —

I do believe, I will believe,
That Jesus died for me,
That on the cross he shed his blood,
From sin to set me free.

20.
There are many more who do not exercise simple faith in Christ
because they do not like the consequences of it. “Why!” one says,
“if I become a believer in Christ, I shall have to give up my old
ways.” You will. “If I become a follower of the Lamb, I cannot go
where I go now.” Quite right; I am glad you see that; I hope that you
are not such a hypocrite as to imagine that you can trust Christ to
put away your past sin, and then go on living in sin as you have
done. That will never do. Christ has opened a hospital for the sick;
but it is so that he may heal them. He receives sinners; but not that
they may remain sinners, it is that he may make saints of them, and
deliver them from sin. You will never come to Christ as long as you
are in love with sin; and you are so much in love with sin that you
never will come at all unless omnipotent grace shall draw you. So
says our Lord Jesus Christ, “No man can come to me, unless the Father
who has sent me draws him.”

21.
There are many others who cannot trust in Christ, and cannot come to
him, because they wish for certain feelings or emotions. You want
to experience unusual changes so that you may know that God is at
work in your soul, do you? Well, I do not wonder at that desire; but
please notice what is said in the forty-sixth verse, “Not that any
man has seen the Father.” The work of God in the heart is not seen
by the soul until first of all the soul sees Jesus Christ. You must
not think that you can deal with an absolute God. Apart from Christ,
you cannot approach God, and God operating on your heart, without
faith in Christ, will not be the basis of any comfort for you.
Whatever God may be doing in you, or may not be doing in you, is not
the thing that you are to look to as the foundation of your hope.
Your trust is to be in Christ’s work on the cross, and in nothing
else. You shall see plenty of evidences, miracles, and signs
eventually; but, to begin with, the gospel for you is, “Believe,
believe, believe.” “I could believe if ——— .” Oh, yes! I see, the basis
of your confidence is that “if,” not God’s Word. “Oh! sir, but I
could trust God’s Word if I ——— .” Ah! that is the same thing over
again. You see, it is not God’s Word that you trust; it is that
rotten “if” to which you cling. Now, away with it, away with it,
please. Either call God a liar, or else believe him. It must be one
of the two; but do not pretend that you would believe him under
certain conditions that you would like to impose. If a man said to me
that he would believe me under certain conditions, I should
understand at once that he did not really believe me at all, that, in
fact, he could not believe me, but he would believe someone else, and
perhaps trust me under cover of that other person. That would not be
faith in me at all; and, please, do not deal with the Lord in such a
way.

22.
So, you see, dear friends, my text plainly teaches us that men are
greatly disinclined to come to Jesus.

23.III. Therefore, THE OPERATIONS OF GOD ON THE SOUL ALL RUN IN THE
WAY OF LEADING MEN TO COME TO JESUS. That is clear if you read the
text, “No man can come to me, unless the Father who has sent me draws
him.”

24.
You see, first, the Father inclines us to come to Christ. “It is
written in the prophets, ‘And they shall be all taught by God.’ ” What
are they taught? “Every man therefore who has heard, and has learned
from the Father, comes to me.” It is clear that the drift of the
divine operations in the heart of man is towards Christ. The Lord
draws us; but all his drawings are towards Christ. If you think that
you have experienced the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart, and
yet it does not draw you towards Christ, you have made a mistake. The
Spirit always draws away from self, and away from sin, to Jesus
Christ alone. If you are drawn that way, it is the Lord who draws
you, for all his drawings are in that direction.

25.
Then, next, the drift of all God’s teachings is this way.
Whatever the Spirit of God teaches a man, the end and object of that
teaching is to get him away from self, and draw him to Christ. All
the teachings of affliction are intended to make us sick of self and
fond of Christ. All the true teachings of the Christian ministry aim
at putting down self, and exalting Christ.

26.
All the drawings, and all the teachings, then, that come from God,
are towards Christ. By this test you may try everything that
professes to be a divine operation. If any man says, “I am the
subject of the work of the Spirit of God,” and he does not exalt
Christ, tell him that he is not the subject of the Spirit’s work at
all. If he comes to you with some fine idea about himself, making out
that he is some great one, say to yourself, “It is no part of the
work of the Spirit to set up any man as a great one; his work is to
take from the things of Christ, and show them to us.” The Holy Spirit
dedicates himself to the glorifying of Christ, so he withers our
false hopes, and gives us true hopes. He does this in order that
Christ may be lifted up, and that we may be drawn to him.

27.
I believe that this is the test of all kinds of preaching. Does a man
come with a divine message for my soul? I will try him by this test.
Does he lift up Christ? Does he draw me to trust in Christ? Does he
draw me to love Christ? Does he draw me to be like Christ? Well and
good; I will hear some more of what that man says; but if, Sunday
after Sunday, I have to say, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do
not know where they have laid him,” I say, “Good-bye, sir, other
people may listen to you, but you are not the man that I want to
hear.” I must have Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ first,
last, Alpha, Omega, beginning, middle, end, and all through, or else
I cannot believe that the teaching is from God; for the Father draws
to Christ, and teaches concerning Christ.

28.
Further, he makes us to hear and to learn that we may come to
Christ. Come, then, my dear hearers; I think that I have brought
you a little into the light now. You say that you must be the subject
of a divine operation. Are you looking to Christ? Then you have had
that divine operation performed on you, for it makes you look to
Christ alone. “Is believing an easy thing?” one asks. It is the
easiest thing in the world, it is as easy as coming, or as eating.
“Well, but why is it so difficult to me?” Probably it is difficult
because it is so easy. I believe that faith is a hard thing to many
because it is not a hard thing. It is just like Naaman’s washing in
the Jordan; if the prophet had told him to do some great thing, some
difficult thing, he would have done it; but when he said nothing but
“Wash, and be clean,” Naaman felt that he was too great to go to the
River Jordan, and too clean to go and wash. He is a nobleman and a
gentleman; is he to go and wash like any pig? Yes, he is; and only in
doing so can he be cleansed, for his leprosy makes him as foul as any
swine could be, and he must therefore wash if he would be clean. You,
though you are the queen of morality, must trust in Christ just as a
prostitute must trust in Christ; and you, young man, though you are
in all things noble and excellent, must come, and believe in Christ,
just as a thief must do, or else you can never come where that dying
thief is who passed with Christ into Paradise. There is only one
door; will you bow your head, and enter? There is only one way of
salvation; will you run along it? If not, if you will put your
goodness before Christ, it shall become as bad as a crime or infamy
itself. May God grant that the operations of the Holy Spirit may lead
you up to simple faith in Jesus!

29.IV. So, then, I finish with this fourth point. IF WE HAVE COME TO
JESUS, WE NEED NOT QUESTION OUR SAFETY.

30.
Christ says, “He who believes in me has everlasting life.” He who has
come to Jesus is saved. You need not question your safety, for you
could not have come to Christ without having been drawn to him. “No
man can come to me, unless the Father who has sent me draws him.” You
could not have come if you had not been drawn. Well, then, if you
have come, you have been drawn; and if the Father has drawn you, you
have come the right way. It all lies in a nutshell. If I have come to
Jesus and have put my trust in him, — my nature is, in itself, so
averse to this way of salvation that, if I have really and from my
heart accepted it, — there must have been on my heart an operation from
God to bring me into this condition. That operation could not have
been badly performed, for God never works amiss or ineffectively. I
am therefore, in the very fact of being brought to Christ, assured
that God has been at work with me.

31.
“Oh!” I have sometimes heard poor souls say, “I came to Christ, but I
am afraid that I have come the wrong way.” You cannot come the wrong
way. “Oh, but I heard of one who came to Christ so quickly!” Yes, and
I have heard of one who came to him very slowly; but since he came,
it did not so much matter how he came. When the whole world was
drowned, a pair of greyhounds found shelter in the ark; I do not
suppose they started very soon. But there was a pair of snails that
went in with them; I wonder how soon they started. They certainly
must have started a long while before the ark door was opened or the
ark prepared. Come along, then, you poor crawling snails, come along!
If some of you have the greyhound’s speed, come along, bound and leap
to Christ; the quicker the better. But if you are a man of slow
action, remember that the snails in the ark were not drowned. Though
they were slow in coming in, there they were, as safely preserved as
the rest of the living creatures that were with Noah. “Well” one
says, “I feel as if I could only creep to Christ, with broken legs
and an aching back.” Then creep to Christ, only do come to him; come
in any way, leaping or limping. If you shall come, he has said,
“Whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out,” and that includes
any coming in all the world if it is only a coming to him. If you
trust him, you are saved. That truth ought, I think, to give some
consolation to any who are troubled about their faith and about the
inner life of the soul.

32.
Yet again, remember that all teaching that is absolutely necessary
to salvation concerns Christ. “Every man therefore who has heard,
and has learned from the Father, comes to me.” If there were any
right teachings that would lead you beyond Christ, — I do not know any,
but if there were such, — you can do without them. The only teachings
that you require are those who lead you to Christ. Let this comfort
anyone who says, “I understand no theology; I am only a beginner in
the study of the Word; I could not even explain the plan of salvation
to another person; but I am trusting in Christ.” Well, rest satisfied
with that glorious fact.

33.
To close, the best sentence in the whole text, to my mind, is that
with which the 44th verse finishes, “I will raise him up at the last
day.” Is that not glorious? The Saviour does not merely say that he
who believes is drawn to him by the Father, and that he is now saved;
but he says, “I will raise him up at the last day.” It is as good as
saying, “I will take that man’s case into my on hands.” He does
not mention all the intervening circumstances, but he finishes up
with the last victory, “I will raise him up at the last day.” “This
man is a sinner, Lord.” “I will forgive him.” “He has a black heart.”
“I will change it.” “He will be very fickle.” “I will keep him.” “He
will be much tempted.” “I will pray for him.” “He will have many
afflictions.” “I will sustain him.” “But Lord, he will die.” “I will
be with him.” “But he will be buried, Lord, and laid among the worms,
dust to dust.” “I will raise him up at the last day.” It is as good
as saying, “I will go through with the business for the entire man”;
for if he takes care of the poor body, and raises it up, depend on it
that he will take care of the soul that shall be for ever with him.
If this rag of a robe that I wear is even so dear to him that he
will not leave it in the grave, then the man within the robe will be
all right. Christ will take care of him, depend on that. He who will
preserve the casket will not lose the jewel. “I will raise him up
at the last day.”

34.
May the Lord bring every one of you to trust in this mighty Saviour,
for his great name’s sake! Amen.

ExpositionBy C. H. Spurgeon{Joh 6:41-71}

We shall read tonight part of that blessed sixth chapter of John’s
Gospel, beginning at the forty-first verse.

41, 42.The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, “I
am the bread which came down from heaven.” And they said, “Is this
not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is
it then that he says, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

Familiarity breeds contempt. Because the Jews knew Jesus and his
kindred after the flesh, therefore they would not believe that he
came down from heaven. Let us beware of foolish prejudices, and let
us not judge after the flesh. Why should Jesus not have come down
from heaven even though these men knew his reputed father and mother?

43.Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not
murmur among yourselves.

It was a muttering that was scarcely audible, but Jesus heard it, and
he checked it. The Lord cannot take any delight in murmuring: “Do not
murmur among yourselves.”

44.No man can come to me, unless the Father who has sent me
draws him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

You did not expect the Saviour to say just that, did you? He always
speaks the truth, even though he has to lay the axe at the root of
the tree of self-confidence. He does not seem to be encouraging his
hearers, but rather to be repelling them. He was trying to show them
the state in which they really were; they had not been drawn to
himself, they were alienated from him; and they would continue to be
at a distance from him unless God should intervene, and draw them to
him.

45.It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall be all
taught by God.’ Every man therefore who has heard, and has learned
from the Father, comes to me.

This was as much as to say, “The Father has never taught you. You
have learned nothing from him, or you would come to me; but in your
rejection of me you prove that you are strangers to the grace of God.”

46.Not that any man has seen the Father, except he who is
from God, he has seen the Father.

Christ is “from God” in a very particular sense. He is not God’s
creature, but God’s Son. He is of the very essence of God, and
therefore he knows what God is as we never can know.

47.Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me
has everlasting life.

This is a grand saying, can you not catch the truth it reveals?
Whatever deficiencies there may be in you, if you believe in Christ,
you have everlasting life, — not a life which you can lose, or which
will die out, but everlasting life; and we are not among those who
clip the wings of that great word “everlasting.” We take this verse
to mean just what it says; that is, if you believe in Christ, you
have within you a life which will last for ever and ever.

48-50.I am that bread of life. Your forefathers ate manna
in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down
from heaven, that a man may eat of it, and not die.

Christ is the Bread for the soul, the Bread of immortality, the Bread
which will prepare a man for heaven, and sustain him until he arrives
there. Oh, that we may all eat this Bread of life, and so live for
ever!

51-54.I am the living bread which came down from heaven:
if any man eats this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world.” The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, “How
can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Then Jesus said to them,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my
flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up
at the last day.

How necessary it is to have a spiritual understanding of the
Scriptures! These metaphors have a kind of cannibal meaning about
them to a man who goes no further than the letter, but the spiritual
man knows that the soul feeds on the doctrine of Christ’s
incarnation, and drinks in the truth of Christ’s atonement. This is
feeding, this is drinking, this is being nourished on Christ’s
flesh and Christ’s blood.

55.For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed.

Food and wine are, after all, only shadows; they feed the
shadow-life of the flesh. Christ and his precious blood are the great
realities, they nourish the true life of the spirit. Blessed are
those who know what it is in spirit to feed on these spiritual things!

56-58.He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells
in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father has sent me, and I
live by the Father: so he who eats me, even he shall live by me. This
is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your forefathers
ate manna, and are dead: he who eats this bread shall live for
ever.”

The Saviour goes over the same ground several times, there is a
variety in his utterances, but in essence the meaning is the same. He
wants to get it into our minds that we are to live on him; — that he,
not self, he, not works, he, not our feelings, is the real food of
the soul, by which that soul acquires and retains immortal life.

59, 60.He said these things in the synagogue, as he taught
in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard
this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?”

Preachers must not be astonished if they stagger their hearers when
they proclaim the truth, they must not retract what they have said,
nor tone it down, because So-and-so is offended by it. Truth is hard,
especially to hard hearts. Every great truth is hard for a beginner
in the school of Christ; but it is none the less to be taught, for
what is difficult today may become delightful tomorrow or whenever we
are better educated in the things of God.

61, 62.When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples
murmured about it, he said to them, “Does this offend you? What and
if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

He who is offended at any gospel truth may expect to be even more
offended, for there are higher and deeper doctrines than Jesus had
then uttered. If you stagger under the elementary lessons, what
will you do when you get into the grammar school of divinity, and
begin to learn the loftier lessons of the truth of God? Oh, for a
faith that never staggers when Christ speaks, and that believes
whatever he reveals!

63.It is the Spirit who quickens; the flesh profits
nothing: the words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are
life.

Do not look at them as dead words; regard them as full of life, and
understand them in their living spiritual sense.

64.But there are some of you who do not believe.”

Some of Christ’s own disciples, some who had kept him company, do not
believe. This was a very sad statement for Jesus to be obliged to
make; but it must be made today about many professed Christians:
“There are some of you who do not believe.”

64.For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did
not believe, and who should betray him.

He is not deceived by hypocrites; if we have crept into the church
unworthily, he knows all about us, he knows us better than we know
ourselves. Oh, that we might be very careful, watchful, jealous! May
we abhor hypocrisy of every kind! It is impossible to continue in it
without being detected; if it were possible we ought not to practise
it; but with such an eye as what is in the Head of the Church, even
Christ, we cannot deceive; therefore, let us not attempt it.

65, 66.And he said, “Therefore I said to you, that no man
can come to me, unless it were given to him by my Father.” From that
time many of his disciples went back, and walked with him no more.

It often happens, in the ministry of a faithful preacher, that he has
to say unpleasant things, and there are some who withdraw because of
his preaching of the truth. Should he break his heart when they do
so? Certainly not. They did the same with his Master, they acted the
same with the apostle Paul. It will be so to the end of the chapter;
and, indeed it is part of our work to separate the precious and from
the vile. Truth is like the fan which drives away the chaff, and
leaves the wheat all the more pure. Yet it is sad to read that many
of the disciples of Christ went back, and walked with him no more,
because they could not endure the faithful words he spoke to them.

67, 68.Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Will you also go
away?” Then Simon Peter —

Who was always to the forefront, always ready to speak, “Simon,
Peter” —

68-70.Answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the
words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that you are that
Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered them, “Have not I
chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?”

Our Lord often surprises us by the way in which he speaks; he does
not say what we should have expected to hear from him, but he says
something that is very startling, and even discouraging. It is the
way of our Master, because he sees further than we do; and he often
replies, not to the question as it lies in the words addressed to
him, but to a belief in the heart behind the words. He did so here,
Peter may have thought that “the twelve” were all steadfast and
sincere, so Christ says to him, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and
one of you is a devil?”

71.He spoke of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for it was
he who should betray him, being one of the twelve.

Gospel, Received by Faith552 — Rock Of Ages<7s., 6 lines.>1 Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flow’d,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
2 Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil thy law’s demands:
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone:
Thou must save, and thou alone.
3 Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
4 Whilst I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eye-strings break in death,
When I soar through tracks unknown,
See thee on thy judgment-throne —
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
Augustus M. Toplady, 1776.

Holy Spirit448 — Regeneration1 Not all the outward forms on earth,
Nor rites that God has given,
Nor will of man, nor blood, nor birth,
Can raise a soul to heaven.
2 The sovereign will of God alone
Creates us heirs of grace;
Born in the image of his Son,
A new peculiar race.
3 The Spirit, like some heavenly wind,
Blows on the sons of flesh;
Creates a new — a heavenly mind,
And forms the man afresh.
4 Our quicken’d souls awake and rise
From the long sleep of death;
On heavenly things we fix our eyes,
And praise employs our breath.
Isaac Watts, 1709, a.

Gospel, Invitations502 — Come Now<8.7.>1 Come, poor sinners, come to Jesus,
Weary, heavy laden, weak;
None but Jesus Christ can ease us,
Come ye all, his mercy seek.
2 “Come, it is his invitation;
“Come to me,” the Saviour says,
Why, oh why such hesitation,
Gloomy doubts, and base delays?
3 Do you fear your own unfitness,
Burden’d as you are with sin?
‘Tis the Holy Spirit’s witness;
Christ invites you — enter in.
4 Do your sins and your distresses
‘Gainst this sacred record plead?
Know that Christ most kindly blesses
Those who feel the most their need.
5 Hear his words, so true and cheering,
Fitted just for the distress’d;
Dwell upon the sound endearing;
“Mourners, I will give you rest.”
6 Stay not pondering on your sorrow,
Turn from your own self away:
Do not linger till tomorrow,
Come to Christ without delay.
William Freeman Lloyd, 1835.

Spurgeon Sermons

These sermons from Charles Spurgeon are a series that is for reference and not necessarily a position of Answers in Genesis. Spurgeon did not entirely agree with six days of creation and dives into subjects that are beyond the AiG focus (e.g., Calvinism vs. Arminianism, modes of baptism, and so on).